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Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were higher Wednesday, paring their biggest gains from a Tuesday spike but still in the midst of the best winning streak for digital assets since the last bull market.

The price of Bitcoin has risen 2% over the past 24 hours to $24,800. The largest digital asset has faded from a $26,500 peak notched in recent tradingits highest level since the crypto crash accelerated last Junebut on Tuesday still capped its best four-day stretch since February 2021, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Ripping higher from below $20,000 as recently as last weekend, a return to the $25,000 zone should reassure traders that Bitcoin is looking bullish again. But it needs to consolidate gains.

The price seems to be developing a bearish pattern, indicating that a top may be in the works for the time being, said Naeem Aslam, chief investment officer at Zaye Capital Markets. Bulls, on the other hand, should rejoice since the price has broken above the $25,000 level, which was an important resistance zone, and a breach of this level has opened the way for the price to re-test its next resistance zone of $30,000.

Bitcoin has revealed just how closely tied crypto sentiment is to the macro picture, rallying in recent days in the face of what could be interpreted as dire headwinds for digital asset markets.

The two leading U.S. crypto banks, Silvergate Capital and Signature Bank, have both collapsed in the past week, boding ill for both token liquidity and sentiment for digital assets among regulators. While the bank failures could lead to negative impacts on market functioning, prices have still soared.

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Ironically, federal regulators closing down Signature Bank as well as Silicon Valley Bankwhich marked the biggest bank failure since the 2008-09 financial crisislit the spark for the latest crypto price spike. Pressure on banks has been an unintended consequence of the Federal Reserves dramatic interest-rate increases over the past yeara campaign to tame decades-high inflation with aggressive monetary policy.

Higher rates also dampen demand for risk-sensitive assets, like stocks and especially cryptos. The bank collapses, as well as encouraging inflation data on Tuesday, have pushed traders to shift their expectations for the Feds next move on interest rates, which is due following the March 21-22 meeting of its policy-setting committee. Bitcoins jump higher was essentially a more extreme expression of the sentiment that similarly drove the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 higher.

Weve seen Bitcoin act as the leading risk-on asset for the last two years, said James Lavish, managing partner at Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. Investors believe that the Fed has taken a 50 basis-point hike off the table for next week, and at worst there will be a 25 basis-point hike, and perhaps no more hikes at all. Bitcoin was able to harness this sentiment and move to risk-on before all other assets.

Beyond Bitcoin, Ether the second-largest cryptoadvanced 2% to $1,700. Smaller cryptos or altcoins were also in the green, with Cardano up 1% and Polygon popping 6%. Memecoins were also gaining, with Dogecoin climbing 5% and Shiba Inu

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Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@barrons.com

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Bitcoin Price on Its Best Winning Streak Since Last Bull Market. What's Next. - Barron's

Bitcoin (BTC) accounts for more of the total value of all cryptocurrencies than at any time since June 2022.

In the latest knock-on effect from this weeks surge above $26,000,data from TradingView shows that Bitcoin market cap dominance is nearing 46% its highest in nine months.

Up almost 3% since the weekend alone, Bitcoin dominance shows a trend-setting move by the largest crypto asset reminiscent of classic bull cycles.

Every Bitcoin bull market has commenced with a spike in BTC dominance (as has every bear market), markets commentator Tedtalksmacro noted on March 15.

An accompanying chart showed that such dominance spikes tend to precede significant trend shifts in BTC price action.

Bull Market or Echo Bubble? Tedtalksmacro queried.

Analyst Hamza meanwhile used Wyckoff schematics to reveal an equally broad surge in dominance after months of an accumulation phase.

Expect for Bitcoin dominance to come roaring back soon, optimistic Bitcoin investor and research analyst Tuur Demeester added earlier in the week.

With recent events further buoying Bitcoin bulls after an already impressive start to the year, overall opinions on future performance are gradually flipping positive after a grim bear market.

Related:Bitcoin returns to $25K as Credit Suisse bailout precedes EU rate hike move

Among the shifts in perspective is that of trading firm DecenTrader, whichdescribed the narrative around Bitcoin as turning bullish in a fresh market update on March 16

It has been a long, cold winter for Bitcoin and crypto. However, recent events have helped to catapult near-term price, and importantly have shifted the narrative from bearish to bullish, contributor Miffy summarized.

Of particular interest is $21,800, should a retracement kick in, with DecenTrader eyeing $30,000 as a potential upside target.

In the near-term the shorts have been squeezed, late-longs punished, and right now price is resting underneath the 200WMA. If price does need to drop down to generate enough momentum to take the next leg up to $30,000, the 1D support at $21,800 is a clear target. But for now 4H support is holding well at $23,900, Miffy concluded.

BTC/USD traded at around $24,900 at the time of writing, according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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Bitcoin dominance nears 50% as research hails bullish narrative flip - Cointelegraph

Dadaab refugee complex, in Kenya, on April 16, 2018. Kenya is one of the African nations where bitcoin users are now using mobile phones to transact over the Lightning Network, even without internet. (Photo by YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images

Theres a growing population of Africans without reliable internet access that are still using bitcoin for peer-to-peer transactions thanks to a solution called Machankura .

In 2022, South African software developer Kgothatso Ngako built a tool, Machankura, for accessing bitcoin despite the continents mobile internet connectivity challenge. It offers a way to access the Lightning Network through an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data interface, utilizing mobile phones Subscriber Identity Module telecommunication network. USSD is similar to Interactive Voice Response.

You usually listen to an IVR program when you call a mobile network operators customer service. It tells you which numbers to press for the service you want to access. USSD is kind of like IVR but in textual form. Machankura is already being used by roughly 2,900 African users across more than seven countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Namibia, Ngako told me. Despite the rapidly growing tech industry on the continent, internet penetration across Africa still has a long way to go.

The silver lining here is that the situation presents a unique opportunity for Africans to build tools for rural and developing areas that havent been explored elsewhere. Other offline bitcoin solutions, such as Locha Mesh in Venezuela, rely on mesh networks to bounce the message from device to device until it reaches a device with internet connectivity. That only works if other people within a few miles of the sender are also operating a mesh network device. In contrast, the unique context in Africa offers a business advantage for technologists looking to reach the 2.9 billion people that the International Telecommunications Union estimates still lack reliable internet access.

The USSD protocol, a communications layer for mobile telecommunication networks that is often compared to SMS, gives software developers a lot of under-hyped flexibility. The USSD protocol allows forwarding request to online applications that bitcoin users can tap into by dialing a code like *483*8333# in Kenya, for example, to interact with the Machankura app even if the phone doesnt have internet connectivity. Here is a demo of a payment on Machankura:

Actions on Machankura can even be more complex than a simple send, receive, or check balance. You can barter BTC, which involves selling your BTC for goods and services on Bitrefill.

Machankura itself offers a Lightning-friendly bitcoin wallet, so users can send to a wallet associated with a user name or phone number or choose to send to any other Lightning wallet using a Lightning address. If all goes well, the user receives a screen message detailing that the payment was successful and showing the Lightning address that received the funds.

Despite the Machankura project being early, the growing popularity of this product shows the bitcoin economy can incorporate low-income populations without reliable internet access. Femi Longe, program director at the educational initiative Qala Africa told me that Africans need to think about bitcoin in their context and how it could be used to solve the problems that they face. Projects like Machankura illustrate how bitcoin can be used in such an African-centric context.

If the global south is going to lead bitcoin adoption, as so many industry experts claim, then I also believe that African users and developers will lead innovation at the bitcoin application level.

Africans are not only consumers of emerging technology. We are also producers and inventors. Although there is a growing number of internet startups on the continent, internet penetration of the continent still remains very low. In 2020, the World Bank estimated that only 29% of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa routinely used the internet. This inspires technologists to build for customers who dont have internet connectivity.

On the other hand, phone usage is widespread. GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association) data from 2018 indicated that 74% of sub-Saharan Africans used SIM cards, estimating that number will rise to 84% by 2025. In short, a significant number of the people in Africa are using phones without internet connectivity, like the Motorolla C113 or feature phones like the Nokia 3310.

To make Lightning payments over USSD reliable, secure and censorship resistant, Machankura will need to overcome several challenges. These challenges include the fact that USSD does not use encrypted messages, so this communication could easily be intercepted by a third party and is not ideal for situations that require privacy. According to Kgothatso, they are already working on ways to introduce encryption on the service in order to mitigate this challenge.

Secondly, the Machankura USSD service is currently custodial. Users dont own their keys, which means they could potentially lose their funds. When it comes to bitcoin the rule is not your keys, not your coins.

One option might be for apps to use a SIM card like a Lighting signer that allows users to backup their wallets. The issue here is that current phone SIM cards are not easily programmable. To solve the programmability issue, the team behind Machankura is currently experimenting with programming SIM overlays as Lightning signers. In addition, every USSD request to the Machankura application, is forwarded to Machankuras servers by a third party (a mobile network operator or a USSD gateway service like Africas Talking). These are all centralized platforms that could potentially be forced by the government to take down Machankura or to cancel the service.

To solve this issue, the Machankura team told me they are thinking about potentially hosting the service as a mobile virtual network operator. And, last but not the least, using an app hosted on specific mobile network operators means that the service is limited to certain countries where the mobile operators network is available. Therefore, scaling the service means integrating with mobile network operators in every new country or using a gateway like Africas Talking to ease the process.

Theres still a long way to go until offline bitcoin solutions are borderless like the bitcoin network itself. Personally, I would love to see simple phone apps offering more easy onboarding that allows people to buy bitcoin, not just send or receive bitcoin someone already owns, directly from the services USSD screen. These could leverage mobile money services that are already accessible via USSD. And, of course, I hope that future iterations make such services non-custodial. All things considered, I believe we will continue to see more innovations using bitcoin that are unique to the global south in the coming years. African bitcoiners are only getting started.

Im a Cameroonian software developer and Melton Foundation fellow focused on open source contributions to the Bitcoin Dev Kit, funded by Btrust. I graduated from Ashesi University College with a degree in computer science and am also a former contributor to Auth0, a web identity provider which helps developers easily integrate authentication and authorization in their apps. Im now based in Kenya, where Im the co-host of the Nairobi BitDevs technical meetup.

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How Africans Are Using Bitcoin Without Internet Access - Forbes

What happened

Cryptocurrencies are having a banner week, despite chaos in the broader market, especially in the banking sector, which is likely due to the fact that many see cryptocurrencies as an alternative to the traditional banking system.

Over the last week, the price of the world's largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC 0.28%), traded roughly 25% higher as of 1:35 p.m. ET Thursday, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Meanwhile, the price of the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum (ETH -0.57%), traded roughly 17% higher, and the price of Bitcoin Cash (BCH -0.24%) was up more than 14%.

Bitcoin was really invented in the wake of the Great Recession. People didn't trust the mainstream financial system or the government for that matter, which led to the creation of decentralized blockchain technology and the cryptocurrencies that trade on these networks.

Image source: Getty Images.

Three banks -- Silvergate Capital,SVB Financial's Silicon Valley Bank, andSignature Bank -- collapsed over the last week. Also, Swiss bank Credit Suissecame under intense selling pressure this week and had to borrow 50 billion Swiss Francs from Switzerland's central bank to shore up liquidity.

I think this week reminded people of why Bitcoin got started in the first place. However, Silvergate and Signature ran real-time payment platforms used mainly by crypto exchanges and other crypto clients. Meanwhile, SVB had banked many crypto start-ups.

I am surprised cryptocurrencies have fared so well given everything that has happened. For one, the collapse of Silvergate and the closure of Signature shutters two of the main fiat on-and-off rails that crypto firms were using to swap dollars for cryptocurrencies and vice versa, which raises liquidity concerns. Additionally, media reports suggest that any potential buyer of Signature must agree to forgo the bank's crypto business.

This also suggests that banking regulators are looking to drive crypto away from the traditional banking system. Former Sen. Barney Frank, who authored critical banking regulation following the Great Recession known as Dodd-Frank and also sat on Signature's board of directors, has now repeatedly said he thinks the closure of Signature was related to "a very strong anti-crypto message."

Bitcoin also seems to be holding up despite the fact that the European Central Bank raised interest rates by a half-point this morning. Rising rates crushed cryptocurrencies all throughout 2022 and the Federal Reserve will convene next week to discuss whether or not the agency should keep raising interest rates in the U.S.

Bitcoin and crypto price action are very, very tough to predict, so while I'm surprised to see crypto investors shaking off all of the bad news this week, never say never in this sector. Additionally, I do think all of the banking issues are helping to drive Bitcoin higher.

For now, I'd keep an eye on how the Fed moves next week. A rate hike will likely not be so favorable for crypto while no rate hike could be very positive. Ultimately, I continue to like Bitcoin and Ethereum and think they will be here for the long haul.

SVB Financial provides credit and banking services to The Motley Fool. Bram Berkowitz has positions in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, and SVB Financial. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Why Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash Are Surging This Week - The Motley Fool

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were little changed Thursday, having consolidated gains from one of the best stretches for digital assets in more than two years amid hopes of more accommodative monetary policy from the Federal Reserve.

The price of Bitcoin has risen less than 1% over the past 24 hours to above $24,800. Bitcoin is still up almost 50% so far this yearhaving soared from a bearish dip after falling below $20,000 last weekbut it has fallen back from a peak above $26,000 on Tuesday, which marked the highest levels since the crypto crash accelerated last June.

We still see a tug-of-war near $25,000, said Alex Kuptsikevich, an analyst at broker FxPro. Prices are returning under the 200-week average, failing to go immediately higher. Technically, an important signal of a return to a long-term bullish trend would be a consolidation above $25,000 at the end of the week. Nevertheless, keeping the price above $20,000 and the 200-day average looks like a sufficient condition that Bitcoin is not ready to decline sharply further and remains interesting for buying on declines.

Crypto prices have jumped higher amid a crisis of confidence across the U.S. banking sector. While the failures of Silvergate Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank since last week have important implications for the digital asset industry and functioning of crypto markets, traders have turned bullish for a different reason.

The meltdown of Silicon Valley Bank in particularthe biggest banking collapse since the 2008-2009 financial crisishas spurred bets that the Fed will not raise interest rates in the coming months as much as once expected. Higher rates have hammered Bitcoin prices over the past year as the Fed has tried to get decades-high inflation under control with tighter financial conditions. But recent stresses on banks, an unintended consequence of the rate environment, has fueled speculation of a more careful Fed.

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A cap on rates, and even the prospect of rate cuts this year, would be a major tailwind for Bitcoin, because higher rates dampen demand for riskier bets like cryptos. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 have slid amid banking woeswith Bitcoin bucking its correlation to the stock marketthe tech stock-heavy Nasdaq, which is similarly sensitive to rate expectation, has been more resilient.

Nevertheless, markets broadly sold off Wednesday amid fears that the U.S. banking panic could go global, with shares in Swiss bank Credit Suisse (ticker: CS) selling off dramatically. Bitcoin wasnt able to escape the short-term selling pressure, hence the move lower through Wednesday and into Thursday.

Bitcoin weakened as chaos across Wall Street saw another banking crisis trigger another wave of panic-selling of risky assets. Credit Suisse is a bigger story than SVB and this has Wall Street extremely nervous, said Edward Moya, an analyst at broker Oanda. Banking turmoil could ultimately prove to be rather bullish for Bitcoin, but for now crypto weakness is justified.

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In focus ahead of the next Fed decision on rates due next week, after the central banks policy-setting committee meets March 21-22, are any signs of more stress in the banking system as well as economic data that add color to the inflation picture.

Beyond Bitcoin, Ether the second-largest cryptolost 1% to above $1,650. Smaller cryptos, or altcoins, were weaker, with Cardano and Polygon losing 3%. Memecoins were also in the red, with Dogecoin down 3% and Shiba Inu shedding 5%.

Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@barrons.com

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Best of Bitcoins Latest Rally Is Over. Watch This Key Level for the Next Move. - Barron's